Personalizing Your Baby’s Newborn Photos

Meet Zander.  Gorgeous skin, long wispy eyelashes, and pouty lips.  Yep, that’s Zander in a nutshell!  He is the first baby for his parents.  Every newborn session is special.  But for first time parents, it is SO important for them to have a great experience.  I know as a new mom, I was super nervous about everything.  So I always strive to make parents feel comfortable and know that they can trust their baby in my hands.  I also want them to LOVE their newborn pictures so personalizing your baby’s newborn photos is very important to me.

Zander’s nursery is decorated in white, navy blue, and baby blue. This picture can be displayed beautifully in there.

Personalizing Your Baby’s Newborn Photos

When clients book their baby’s newborn photos with me, they fill out a Client Agreement and Planning Guide.  This is a form where they can tell me special requests such as colors, nursery colors, props, and poses that they love (or don’t love).  I use this guide to help setup for the session at my Hendersonville newborn studio.  Almost every prop, accessory, and fabric you see on my website is at my studio.  When I say my studio is fully stocked, I mean it!  It can be overwhelming looking at my huge prop collection, so I have everything ready for you when you arrive.

Wrapped up tight and snug as a bug was his favorite.

Incorporating Personal Items

A great way for personalizing your baby’s newborn photos is by incorporating personal items.  Another question that I ask my newborn clients is “Do you have any personal items you’d like to incorporate.”  Here is Zander’s mom’s response to this question.

“Since this is our first and it is a boy I want to make sure we capture my husbands service in some of the pictures. He will be retiring in 3 years so I think this will be our only child while he is still serving. I see so many cute pictures with the baby by their boots or wrapped up in the dads arms while they have their uniform on. So I want to be creative with these pictures. I also want to make sure we get cute pictures as a family.”

I knew we would have to make that an important part of his newborn portraits, and I absolutely LOVE how they turned out.

Zander’s parents wanted to honor his dad’s service in the Army by incorporating his uniform.

Documenting Baby’s Details

Zander started his newborn session wide awake.  However, he quickly started dozing off.  Once those little eyes shut, I noticed his long, gorgeous lashes and knew I needed to document them.  Plus it gave him a little extra time to get good and sleepy.  Bonus!

Once I wrapped up Zander nice and tight, he got very sleepy. I captured some detail shots while we were letting him get in a deep sleep.

Baby Led Posing

Zander LOVED being wrapped up.  I mean, loved it!  However, his mommy really wanted a froggy pose with his little hands on his face.  Annnnnnnd that meant I needed to unwrap him.  There’s always a little bit of finger crossing that comes with getting babies unwrapped.  But oh my goodness, look at this cuteness we captured as I was unwrapping him!  I could have eaten him up!  Of course, we had to document it too!  Spoiler alert: Zander was NOT a fan of the froggy pose, and that’s ok!  Not every baby is going to do EVERY pose.  That is what makes each and every newborn photo session unique.  Because not every baby will lay so chill with his hands behind his head either.  (Zander DID let us get that beautiful pose on the blue blanket at the top of this post.  That was our compromise for not liking the froggy pose!)

Zander did not love being unwrapped, but he sure was chill in this pose!

Booking Your Newborn Pictures

Can you tell that I LOVE newborn sessions?  It’s one of the reasons I’ve been named as one of the best Nashville Newborn Photographers by Expertise.  I would love to meet your newest addition.  I am currently booking newborns due December – March 2019 in my Hendersonville TN newborn studio.  I’d love to have your baby on my calendar.  Contact me today to get scheduled!

Sleepy Baby Tips

Have you ever wondered how I get my newborns to sleep?  Well…. I’m going to share a few of my secrets with you!  I think the biggest fear for all of my newborn clients is that their baby won’t cooperate for newborn pictures.  As you can tell from my pictures, I get LOTS of sleepy babies!  So I’m going to share 3 of my best sleepy baby tips with you.

Meet Selah.  She was an awesome sleeper for her newborn photos.  She even gave us quite a few little smiles.  She is baby #1 for her parents, and I must say, they make a pretty cute little family.

Froggy pose is one of our most requested poses. It’s a complex pose requiring an extra set of hands and composite work.

Not only is the froggy pose a complex pose, but it’s also a pose babies either love or hate. I don’t guarantee any pose and will not force baby into a pose that they don’t like.

Sleepy Baby Tip #1

When babies are just a few weeks old, a full belly makes them nice and sleepy.  This is why I ask my parents to feed baby before coming to the studio.  When I was a new mom, I followed the Babywise sleep training schedule.  The Babywise method follows an eat, wake, sleep cycle.  If you feed baby before leaving your home, this allows a bit of wake time while you get loaded in the car, and by the time you arrive at the studio baby is asleep.  When clients worry about a 45 minute – 1 hour drive, I tell them it’s actually perfect.  The drive gets them good and sleepy by the time they arrive at the studio.   I also recommend keeping baby awake a little longer during their wake time before this feeding.  You can do this by bathing baby if you have started baths.  However, you can keep baby awake too long.  We don’t want to overstimulate them so that they get over tired.

Theare are a few other factors that go into feeding baby.  If you are nursing, we want to schedule your session once your milk has come in.  This amount of time varies for every mom, but it usually takes about 4-5 days.  This is why I never schedule babies before 6 days new (preferable 8 days).  We want to let your milk come in and allow you time to develop a good nursing routine with your baby.  I also recommend watching your diet very closely before pictures.  Avoid drinks with caffeine that may keep baby awake and foods such as green veggies and citrus.  There are so many great resources online about nursing diets, but I found a great comprehensive list on The Bump.

Selah’s nursery is decorated in watercolor flowers that are pale pink and peach. I used that as inspiration for her newborn props and colors.

Sleepy Baby Tip #2

Babies love to be warm and comfortable. Their environment is another key factor in keeping them nice and sleepy.  I keep my studio warm for pictures without wraps.  At home, this is not possible, but you can dress baby so that he or she is nice and warm during nap time.  (Be cautious of the season so baby doesn’t overheat.). White noise is another great sleep aid.  It filters out background noises that can startle baby and mimics sounds that they heard in the womb.  I LOVE the White Noise app, and usually have clients downloading it at their session.

Blanket poses like these require sleepy babies.

Sleepy Baby Tip #3

Swaddle, swaddle, swaddle.  Babies LOVE being wrapped up nice and tight.  This keeps their startle reflex under control and prevents their hands and arms from waking them up.  Many parents believe that their baby doesn’t like to have his or her arms pinned up, but I have found it’s usually the wrapping process that they don’t like.  I like to pin up their hands nice and tight first and rock them a bit as soon as I have them secure.  This usually soothes them enough to finish wrapping.  Wrapped poses are some of my absolute FAVES.  I love how it keeps the focus on their little faces and those tiny fingers peeking out are bonuses.  Swaddling isn’t just for photos.  Learning how to wrap baby securely at home will help with nap time.

Parent poses are some of my favorites! I love seeing the love between parents and their new babies.

I hope you have found some helpful sleepy baby tips!  I LOVE when parents call me the “Baby Whisperer”, and I find us talking about sleep tips during every photo session.  I only had 2 kids, and the last time I had a newborn in the house was NINE (insert crying emoji) years ago.  I am not a doctor, nurse, sleep expert, etc.  But I see lots of babies, and I’ve found some great tricks to calming down babies through the years.  I love helping new parents with what I’ve learned during our sessions.

If you are expecting and want to book your newborn session, please get in touch!  I am currently booking newborns due in November – March.